Barling Meers: A Hefty Price Tag!
- Thread starter gervais
- Start date
They are made by Altinay, and no better or different than Altinay's offerings...you're just paying a premium for the Barling brand. If you like them, just get an Altinay...IMO.
PS: and the Barling style/shape choices are rather limited...you have a much larger choice with Altinay.
The one thing you can say about hefty price tags is they can be ignored.
I recently tried two different Barling pipes, both of which had poor fitting. New Barlings aren’t worth the price point IMO. Even my Grabows had better stem fitting 
The IP was bought by K&K, so nothing to do with the old Brand. Actual Barling meerschaum pipes from the mid 19th thru early 20th century can be very pricey, but when you look at the often complex and elegant silver work it's easy to understand why.
Now this is a Barling Meer a 1904 and 1914 respectively
Beautiful pipes. They look like real workhorses and easy clenchers with how short they are.
I can't comment on the new ones, but these are my two, 1899 and 1892 respectively
Pipes have a romance to them, so you have to be guarded when you reach a certain price point. People can be wooed way past a price that would stand in a re-sale.
If you are able to drop a lot of money, and want to, I'd say study the hell out of it, or you will likely pay too much.
If you are able to drop a lot of money, and want to, I'd say study the hell out of it, or you will likely pay too much.
just the other day I looked at a pipe and almost fell out of my chair when I looked at the price of a barely remarkable pipe. I thought wow that's the same thing as the 100 dollar pipe but straight grain and no fills is worth 500 bucks to someone.